God Out Of The Machine
by darkwanderer125
Summary: The story of how a boy becomes a man. John needs to learn how to become a true leader, and a certain brown-haired terminator may be just the inspiration he needs. Eventual Jameron, rated M for language and future lemon scenes
1. Prologue

**This is my first attempt at a fanfic that I've actually posted (under insistence from my friends ) so please, try not to be too harsh. Reviews are appreciated, but try to be as constructive as possible. **

**Also many thanks to my unofficial beta reader and fellow writer Thundergod16. **

**God Out Of The Machine**

Prologue:

_From the journal of Sarah Connor, date 14 January 2008_

_DEUS EX MACHINA. The single term could describe almost every aspect of life. Simply put, it translates to "god out of the machine". It is a plot device where a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object._

_In fact, now that I think about it, my whole life seems like some long, drawn out "Deus Ex Machina". First with the arrival of the first T-800 and Kyle Reese, the time-paradoxical father of my son, something which drove me mad thinking about it. Then with the arrival of the mercury-inspired T-1000 and the "Uncle Bob" T-800. Why is it that in both of these cases the Deus Ex Machina was, quite literally, inserted via a machine? The second one was even a machine. And now her… Even as I'm writing this, I'm looking at her as she is staring out of the window. Could I ever see her as anything other than she is? A life-taking instrument of war, converted to our side by means of simple computer reprogramming? God, sometimes I wonder how I could still be so distrustful of a machine, when 'Uncle Bob' saved me and John's life a couple of times, and when, in a distant life, my answering machine had said, in Ginger's voice: "Machines need love too."  
>She seems so elegant, so poised, literally perfect, but what lies underneath that fair skin? What lurks beneath those rich chocolaty-brown eyes, staring back at me? And, most importantly, what model was she? <em>

_At first, I thought she was a T-888, like every other terminator we'd faced since she came into our lives (surplus in the factory production, I guess?). That was, until John and I witnessed her eating food and consuming fluids. Her combat skills were also unlike that of a normal terminator. She seemed to be able to anticipate the moves of her opponents, along with having grace and flexibility I've only seen the T-1000 show. _

_My only logical conclusion is that she is a model between the T-888 and T-1000, one designed to appear even more human that the T-888 infiltrator. When I had asked Derek if he knew what model she was, he had answered that he had no idea, that John had never told anyone what she was, or how exactly she had come to be reprogrammed by the Resistance. They had encountered even the T-1000 in the future, but never one that could show such a degree of emotions. There was one question that kept lingering in the back of her mind: where did the emotions, however subtle, displayed by Cameron come from?_

Carefully the woman shuffled through the bills in her hand, counting them to herself. Her name was Miranda, and she was the most profitable of all of the Wicked Witch's…merchandise. When she reached the end of the bills, she smiled to herself.

"Damn! 700 $, I'm rich," she giggled to herself. She quickly counted through the money again, and began to skip down the sidewalk, all the while humming a tune to herself.

Suddenly she heard a crackling sound coming from the alley to her left, and when she stopped and turned her head she saw the entire alley bathed in a blue hue. Curiosity got the better of her, and she began to cautiously make her way down the alley.

"Hello?" she called out, her voice laced with fear. She slowly inched down the alley, and stopped dead in her tracks when she came across a crater in the ground. The sand in the crater seemed to have been super-heated, for it was turned to glass.

Suddenly she heard a clanking noise behind her, as if someone had bumped against a trashcan, and spun around to see who it was.

"Is anyone there?" she called out again, but her voice cracked slightly.

Suddenly a naked woman looking to be in her early twenties came walking out of the shadows. Miranda's eyes went wide in surprise, but also in embarrassment. She had been shivering in fear, and all for nothing. Her temper suddenly flared though, and she got angry at this bitch who thought she could just walk up to her.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice oozing self-confidence. She was sure that she was way hotter than this slut, even with her clothing on.

When the mysterious woman came close, however, she saw that she didn't even stand a chance. Eyes as blue as the clear sky looked back at her, the most beautiful blonde hair she'd ever seen came down from the woman's head. She had the most perfect tan Miranda had ever seen, and her feminine curves were of the sort that could make even the most seasoned of men lose all self-control.

Wait a minute, thought Miranda. This bitch must be coming here to steal my clients away from me.

"Hey, are you deaf or stupid?" Miranda spat at the woman. "I asked who you were? Did you come here to steal my job?"

The woman cocked her head to one side and eyed Miranda strangely, almost as if she was from another planet. This infuriated Miranda even more, since it made her feel the woman was looking down at her. Finally deciding she had had enough, she drew her arm back and backhanded the woman, but the moment her hand connected with the woman's cheek, it felt like she had hit solid rock. She grabbed her hand and held it in the other in agony.

"What the fuck?" she asked, her voice sounding like a whimper.

"I like your clothes," the woman said and a near-sadistic grin spread across her face, before she grabbed Miranda around the neck, and lifted her far above the ground. Miranda couldn't believe anyone possessed such strength; Miranda's eyes were wide with fear. She began to struggle, and suddenly the woman jerked her hand, breaking Miranda's neck.

The mysterious woman knelt at Miranda's body, and began to slowly undress her, before dressing herself in the clothes she had just taken off of Miranda. The clothing seemed far too tight, however, and the woman looked herself over, before her body suddenly turned to pure mercury, and moulded itself to accommodate the clothing. When it was done, she turned back to normal, and one single thing appeared on her HUD:

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: DESTROY JOHN CONNOR.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Life with the Connors

"Fuck!" Derek yelled as he tossed the spanner across the garage and slid out from under the Dodge truck they'd acquired recently. He was currently trying to fix the wheel suspension, the key word being 'tried'

"Still having trouble with the car?" he heard a voice ask as footsteps entered the garage.

He looked up at the origin of the voice, spotting John, his nephew. He held out his hand and his nephew helped him up, both of them groaning.

"You have no idea how much crap it's giving me," Derek answered, patting the Dodge Ram's hood affectionately. "But, she did take us all the way to Mexico and back, so it goes without saying that I owe it to her to get her running as new."

"You know you could just ask Cameron-"

"No," Derek replied curtly, cutting John off, and he knew to leave it at that.

"Uh, Derek, could I ask you something?" John asked as he nervously twirled his fingers over each other.

"Go for it," Derek answered as he opened the car's hood and checked the oil.

"Have I ever killed anyone? In the future, I mean?" John asked, making Derek immediately stop with what he was busy with, turn around and face John.

"Yes," he answered, looking John directly in the eye while wiping his hands on a piece of cloth, before he flung it over his shoulder.

"Oh…" John said, and a tense silence suddenly set over them.

_Well, this is the most awkward silence I've ever experienced, _John thought. He had never been one who was an expert on conversations, but at least he had never deemed it necessary to ask anyone whether or not he'd ever killed anyone, least of all his uncle - the man who was now his most direct link to his father.

"Look John, you're not a murderer," Derek said, suddenly breaking the silence. "Of the seven people you've killed, five were Grays – humans who defected to Skynet's side to fight against the rest of humanity – one because he was mortally wounded and would otherwise have slowly bled out, and another man for trying to purposefully sabotage one of your missions. You have never killed anyone without having good reason."

John nodded, but he still seemed a little tense over it all. Derek decided to add a little humour to lighten the situation, and said, "Heck, same cannot be said about Skynet's machines! You've killed them in the thousands."

This at least got a chuckle from John. "Oh yeah, was I any good?" he asked.

"Were you any good?" Derek replied incredulously. "Hell John, you were one of the best! No one could quite make as much scrap metal as you. Even Kyle and his mother of a Barrett couldn't quite best your total of 1873 H-K's, 42 T-800's, 1 Harvester and 3 VTOL's."

John smiled. He couldn't help but feel smug, but suddenly he thought of something Derek had said, and he asked, "What's a Harvester?"

A look of shock appeared across Derek's face. "What, didn't Kyle ever talk to your mom about the infamous operation that everyone called 'Harvester Hell Run'?"

John shook his head. "If he did, she never told me about it."

Derek merely laughed in shock. "Well, _that _is surprising! It was out favourite morale booster story for nearly a year. Before that operation, no one had ever taken down a Harvester – basically something of a massive terminator that was about 30 meters high and heavily armoured – on foot. We always retreated when one of them appeared on the battlefield and called in air support, or artillery to finish it off. Anyways, here we heard about one of our bunkers being hit by metal, and you and 60 of your best soldiers – me and Kyle included – went in for a counter-attack to save our bunker. Well, needless to say, when we arrived there, the entire place was swarming with metal. We weren't afraid, however, and started to engage them," Derek took a deep breath, and continued, "well, we were fighting for about ten minutes, and our sharpshooters – your dad included – were winning the battle for us. That was, until we felt the ground shake, and when we looked up, there it was. It had a massive plasma caster mounted on its shoulder, and believe me, it was deadly..."

Derek saw John's eyes widen at the description, and he knew he had been successful at indicating the danger they were in. After a few seconds, he went on, "I suggested that we retreat, but you, being the crazy sonofabitch we all knew you to be, grabbed what was left of our grenades, strapped an RPG on your back and grabbed a grenade launcher, yelling for us to take cover. Your father didn't, however, and began to cover you with his rifle as you ran like hell itself was behind you, which, come to think of it, could have been, judging by the amount of explosions you left in your wake from everything firing at you.

"When you came near the gargantuan robot, it tried to smash you, as its plasma caster couldn't hit you that close. You fired an armour-piercing grenade round at its back, and it stumbled forward. It immediately struck back and swiped with its arm at the area you were, but you ducked and rolled out of the way just in time. You placed another round in the grenade launcher and this time fired at its chest, but again it had little effect. You weren't done showing off, though, and you ran your crazy ass right between its legs, throwing a grenade into the gaps between each of its leg supports. A few seconds later there was an explosion, and both of its legs were crippled, making it wobble around. You had effectively denied it its ability to move. It still hated you, however, and kept firing at you. Luckily it had run out of missiles, or you'd have been dead.

"That, John, is when you did it. The one thing no one had ever done. You sidestepped, took the RPG out, aimed at its ocular system on the top of its chest, and let loose. The armour-piercing rocket penetrated its armour, and exploded inside its chest, blowing a massive hole inside it. As it collapsed on the floor with its plasma caster searching for a target, you grabbed a some C-4, lodged it into an area on its chest, jumped up and ran like hell back to where we were hiding behind some debris about 350 meters away, and pushed the button. The C-4 did the trick, but the amount of awe when it went off, detonating its hydrogen reactor and creating a miniature mushroom cloud, stunned us all. We all got piss drunk in celebration of saving nearly 80 people in that bunker, and you 'nuking' a frigging Harvester."

"I did that?" John asked with amazement etched on his face.

"Yep," Derek replied, smiling at his nephew. "And, best of all, Kyle caught everything on video. We watched it over and over for what seemed like weeks, still trying to figure out how it never hit you."

"Maybe I did a Matrix move and dodged the plasma bursts?" John suggested with a coy smile, making Derek laugh.

"You were moving so fast, and there was so much fire that followed your wake as plasma bolts exploded behind you, you could've been immortal for all I knew!" Derek shot back, still chuckling.

Suddenly Sarah walked in, looking at the smiling John and chuckling Derek. "What is going on here, huh?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Oh nothing, Derek was just telling me how I beat a massive robot in the future, earning me a place in the hall of fame," John said, shrugging. "You know, typical Connor day."

Sarah rolled her eyes, before she put her arm around John's shoulder and directed him out of the room. "Well then, Smart-Ass, you wouldn't mind helping Cameron cook tonight, would you?" she said.

"Of course not, Mom," John answered sarcastically while rolling his eyes. "At least that way it'll be edible."

Sarah smacked at his direction, but he ducked and narrowly avoided it as he made a beeline for the door. He suddenly popped his head into the garage, and said, "See, Derek, I got plenty of training dodging lethal arm sweeps right here from my own mother."  
>Derek burst out laughing at this statement. He had tears in his eyes, but when he looked up at Sarah glaring daggers at him, he immediately stopped.<p>

"And now, your punishment is to clean all those guns there," she said, pointing to the recently-used guns lying on the table in the corner of the garage. "And they better be clean when I come back!"

"Why do I get punished?" Derek asked, sounding somewhat like a whining child.

"Because you're encouraging him to mock me," she said, before a devious grin spread across her face. "And I like watching you work."

Derek's demeanour instantly changed to brooding as he looked at the row of side-arms, rifles, shotguns and grenade-launchers needing cleaning. "This is going to be a long night," he sighed as he picked up the first pistol and began disassembling it.

John walked into the house and immediately made his way to the kitchen, where the nicest aroma he had ever smelled was wafting towards him. When he came there he saw Cameron busy making what appeared to be a stew of some kind.

John immediately made a sound of contentment when he entered the kitchen. "Whoa, Cam, that smells delicious."

"Thank you," she said, not looking up from the pot where she was stirring.

John walked over to where she was standing, and, when he brushed past her, he couldn't help but notice that there was only one layer of material he felt. When he looked down, he blushed when he noticed that she was only wearing boy shorts along with her tank top.

"Uh, Cameron..." John said, not knowing where to stick his face.

"Yes, John?" she replied, looking at him.

"Why are you only wearing boy shorts and a white tank top? And why on earth does it have the 'Hello Kitty' logo on it?" he asked, trying his best to keep his cool.

"Because it's hot out, and they were on sale?" she said, and John could've sworn he heard a hint of confusion in her voice.

John only shook his head, before something else caught his eye, something that had been bothering him for quite a while now.

"Cameron, why the hell do you never wear matching bras and panties? And what's the deal with the white tank top?" John blurted out, until he realised how it must've sounded, and mentally kicked himself."I'm sorry - it's none of my business."

"Is there something wrong with it?" she asked, looking down at her purple bra and white boy shorts.

"It just looks...different, that's all. Forget I said anything," John replied, as he sat down at the table and began to browse random sites on the internet from his phone.

"Do you disapprove of it?" Cameron asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Do I disapprove of what?" John asked in reply.

"My purple bra and white 'Hello Kitty' boy shorts, as you called it?" she asked, and John nearly chocked. If any other girl asked him that, he would have sent them to the nearest loony bin.

When he looked at her, however, he realised she was truly curious, and when she cocked her head to the side and eyed him with her beautiful brown eyes, he felt the strangest squirming feeling in his stomach.

_Oh great, a machine is giving me butterflies, _John thought, the irony being plainly obvious.

"I don't disapprove of it, no, but I doubt the terminator T-Sarah will approve," John answered, smiling at his own joke

"So you like it?" she asked, eyeing him oddly, almost like she thought he was trying to hide something.

"Well..." John said, squirming uncomfortably in his seat. "Yeah, it's something that makes you unique."

"Oh, thank you for explaining," she replied in a monotone, and John looked at her strangely, thinking, _why does she always sound so 'detached'?_

"Whoa, whose cooking is that I smell?" Sarah said as she entered the kitchen.

"Mine," Cameron said, turning the stove off. "I believe it's done, if the recipe on television was correct."

"You got the recipe on television?" John asked, eyeing her with a shocked expression on her face.

"Yes, that's what I just said," Cameron answered him as she began setting the table. John suddenly felt guilty seeing her set the table on her own while he was sitting on his butt doing nothing and immediately got up to help her.

"Here, let me help you with that," John said as he took the stack of plates that she was currently balancing perfectly in her one hand.

Sarah immediately gave John the strangest look she'd ever given him, and Cameron looked at him with an expression of extreme confusion. John tried his best to ignore the odd looks they were giving him, and with as much dignity he could manage, began to set down a plate for every person.

"John, I am perfectly capable of setting the table by myself," Cameron suddenly spoke up defensively, still not moving from her original position. "I do not need your help."

The last part had sounded like she felt insulted by his actions. John set down the last plate, and turned to face her, looking deep into her eyes, before he said, "It's not right that you do all of the work in this house, you're not our servant, you're an equal."

This was too much for Sarah, and despite the small smile Cameron gave John, she said, "John, she's a machine, it doesn't matter to her!"

"See Mom, that's exactly the state of mind that'll make us unable to win the war one day," John said as he looked at his mom. "If we continue believing they are lesser beings, we'll never be able to fully understand why they hate us so."

"John, are you not hearing yourself?" Sarah exclaimed defiantly. She stood up, and her chair scraped along the floor, making a hair-raising noise. "It's a machine! It doesn't feel anything! It was reprogrammed to serve us."

"No Mom, _she _was sent to protect_ me_. And the way you're acting makes me think _you're _more of a machine that can't feel anything!" John finally yelled back exasperatedly.

Cameron stood, silently watching John and his mother fight, her CPU finding it difficult to process why exactly they were fighting. Sarah's reasoning was sound – she (Cameron) was reprogrammed and sent back in time to serve them. So why was John being so adamant? She decided to save the memory and view it later, before looking back at the spectacle that was unfolding in front of her.

Meanwhile, Sarah had finally heard enough. Unable to believe her own son would take the side of a machine above that of herself, his mother, she huffed and walked out of the kitchen/dining room to the living room, and there was a tense silence that followed.

"Thank you, John," Cameron said, and when John spun around to face her, he could swear she had a slight smile on her face. When he looked again, however, it had vanished, making him wonder if perhaps he was seeing things?

John kept staring at her, a look of shock on his face, before being shaken out of his reverie by her placing the pot with stew in on the table. He began to dish some stew for himself, and immediately dug in. After the fifth mouthful, he looked up to see Cameron staring at him, her head slightly to the right.

"I'm sorry, am I being a pig?" he asked.

"No John, I'm fascinated by the human ability to swallow food as quickly as you are demonstrating," she replied seriously, and John couldn't help but chuckle.

"In other words, I'm being a pig," he said jokingly. Suddenly his face grew serious. "But really Cameron, this food is delicious!"

_Is it just me, or does she look pleased with herself? _John thought when Cameron made eye-contact with him.

"I'm glad you like it, John," she said, a ghost of appreciation creeping into her voice.

The rest of the meal passed in relative silence. John wolfed down the delicious stew Cameron had made, and when he finally put his knife and fork down, a tired-looking Derek appeared in the doorway, his breath slightly strained.

"Who made food?" he asked the moment he spotted the pot of stew in the middle of the dining room table.

John glanced at Cameron and gave her a lightning-fast wink, before he said, "I made it Derek."

Derek eyed his nephew sceptically. "Is it safe to consume?"

"I just ate a plateful of it, and it was delicious, even if I have to say so myself," John replied, rubbing his stomach for effect and making a humming sound.

"Good, 'cause I'm starved!" he exclaimed as he fell down in a vacant spot, before he began to shovel copious amounts of food into his plate.

John looked disapprovingly at the way Derek was behaving like a slob, and he looked back at Cameron, who also had an oddly disgusted-looking expression on her face. John cleared his throat once, twice, three times before Derek finally looked up at him, his mouth area covered in the sauce from the stew. John suppressed a shudder.

"Do you mind eating like a civilised human?" John asked with his voice etched in thinly-veiled disgust.

"Why?" Derek asked. "It's only you and me, and we're both guys."

"_S_he's here too," John said, gesturing with his hand in Cameron's direction.

"Well, I don't really much care what _it _thinks of me," growled Derek, and John glared at him again.

"_She, _not _it_," John corrected him.

Derek placed his knife and fork down next to the plate and sighed, shooting John a disapproving look. "John, you can't talk about it like it's a human. It's a machine, nothing more, nothing less."

John ignored the last statement Derek made and merely looked over at Cameron. Derek looked from John to Cameron, before he continued eating again, though John noticed that it was at a much more relaxed pace than before. John suddenly got up and made his way out of the dining room.

"Where are you going?" Derek inquired.

"I'm off to my room, I'll probably be in there the rest of the night," John replied tensely as he exited the dining room.

Derek only sighed, before he felt eyes boring a hole into him. He turned his head to face Cameron, noticing that she was looking at him strangely, and said, "I'm not made of gold, Tin-Miss. Look at something else."

Cameron eyed him strangely, before she replied, "Yes, gold has a certain attractiveness to it, whereas you have none whatsoever."

Derek's jaw dropped as Cameron leaned over the table and took grabbed John's plate, which she took to the dishwasher. When she had put it inside, she walked past Derek, who still had an utterly flabbergasted look on his face. The look only turned to totally bowled-out when he looked at her backside as she walked away and noticed that she was only wearing underwear, and that it accentuated her behind extremely well.

_God, I just got owned by a machine, _he thought moodily.

John was lying on his bed, staring at the roof while listening to random music on his iPod. He was so busy with his daydreaming that he didn't even notice Cameron walk in until she was right above him, her eyes looking directly into his own. He removed his earphones and sighed.

"Is there a problem?"

"No," Cameron replied. "I merely wanted to thank you."

"Thank me for what?" John asked, his voice betraying his confusion.

Cameron cocked her head to the side again in a gesture of inquisitiveness. "I don't know," she answered, "but I feel like I owe you my thanks. Maybe for defending me at the table when everyone was against me?"

This made John sit up straight on his bed and look directly at her. "You're welcome, I guess. It's not like I didn't make my fair share of enemies tonight."

Suddenly another ghostly smile appeared on her face, but it was gone so fast that John wandered if maybe he hadn't been dreaming. She looked grateful though, and John immediately had a sudden, indescribable urge to ask what she meant by: "I feel like I owe you my thanks."

He was shaken out of his reverie by Cameron saying something. "Sorry, what'd you say?" John said, feeling his ears grow red in embarrassment of not hearing what she said.

Cameron seemed not to notice, and went on to repeat herself in her old calm, tranquil voice, "I said that you don't have to worry. Being a leader means that sometimes you need to make difficult choices – sometimes a leader must discern between: what is right, and what is easy."

"And what was that decision I made tonight? Was it the right one, or the easy one?" John asked softly, lying back down and looking at the ceiling.

"Only you have the answer to that, John. My CPU cannot sufficiently answer that question," she answered, before slowly turning around and walking out of his room.

John couldn't help when his eyes shifted so that he could watch her hips swing in a very human manner as she exited his room, and he wandered, not for the first time, if she was not perhaps trying to show him exactly what he wanted to see. Then again, the way she's acting would in some cultures be considered flirting, but he doubted her programming even had something like that_._

_Ah, but does it necessarily need to be part of her programming, _that nagging voice inside his head said.

_Yes, why else would she do anything? _He reasoned to himself. _She's a terminator; they act purely upon orders and mission parameters._

And what if she has emotions? That was the one question that kept nagging at the back of his mind. Ever since he had met her and found out she was a terminator, he'd been wondering about that possibility. He knew that emotions could not be programmed, but she could easily have learned how to feel, especially since he'd seen the last terminator he interacted with start to indicate something akin to emotions. But, could she_ feel_?

She moved silently, like a cat. Ignoring the catcalls and whistles from all of the men she passed, her HUD processed everything that transpired around her. She noticed how the humans kept going on with their daily routines, not minding at all that any moment one of them could be killed.

"Hey pretty lady, you look like you could use a good time," a tall, Spanish-accented man said who suddenly stood blocking her way.

"No thanks," she answered in a dull monotone.

The man was persistent, however, and said, "Bitch, you're coming with me!"

He grabbed her around the wrist and tried to pull her in the direction of a shady corner in an alley to their left. He was just about to walk when he was violently pulled back by her. She grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him, dislocating it at the shoulder and making him cry out in pain. She pulled him close to her, put her mouth next to his ear, and she felt his heartbeat speed up.

"I said _NO!" _she whispered threateningly into his ear, before pulling him violently on his dislocated arm, sending him crashing into the wall. Everyone around her was staring at her like she'd come from another world, but she didn't care.

No emotion governed her actions – no fear guided her ways. She was without pain, hurt, disappointment, love, jealousy. The only thing that made her discern what to do was the programming embedded into her mind by her creator, and she would be forced to carry out its wishes until the last spark of power left her body.

"Somebody, call the police!" a woman a few feet away from her yelled, and she turned to fix her stoic glare at the woman.

"They cannot stop me," she said to the woman in a voice that sounded like it came from death itself.

The woman's eyes widened in shock, and her hands began to tremble. "I'm sorry," she said at the strange blonde who had just killed a man twice her size.

She knew the effect her voice had on people. She was made by her creator to be intimidating when the situation called for it, but she could also be the world's best seductress when called for. She ignored the pathetic woman's apologies – they meant nothing to her. Instead she kept heading down the street, her destination: the Department of Homeland Security. She knew it would be the easiest place to find her target.

She stopped abruptly, however, when a police motorbike stopped next to her. The cop got off, walked up to her, and said, "Hey, you're that stripper from the Wicked Witch, right!"

She just stared at the man before walking past him down the sidewalk. The policeman the grabbed her shoulder and yanked her around. "Hey! I'm talking to you."

"I like your gun," she said, fluttering her eyelashes and licking her lips in a seductive manner as she looked up from where her eyes were gazing at the pistol holstered at his hips.

The policeman looked flustered, but quickly regained his composure, and asked, "What?"

The blonde woman said nothing, she merely looked at him with her trademark sadistic grin on her face, and the policeman felt true fear, for the first time in his life. He barely had a second to regret his choice of patrol routes for that particular night when suddenly something sharp protruding from the blonde pierced his chest, stabbing him through the heart and ending his life instantly.

She looked at his corpse for a few seconds, before she knelt next to him and took out his pistol from his holster, before she cocked it and stepped into the road, in front of an oncoming car. There was a screeching sound as the woman in the car slammed hard on her brakes and slammed her head against the dashboard.

"Ouch," the brown-haired woman in the car said as she held her head and looked out at whoever had suddenly just jumped in front of the car. Nobody was there.

She was suddenly startled by a woman standing next to her and looking down into the car. She didn't miss the gun in the woman's hand, nor did she miss the dark stare the woman was giving her.

"I like this car," the woman suddenly said to her, and she gazed back fearfully at her.

"W-What?" she whimpered.

The blonde said nothing - she merely traced her hand over the side of the car's door and began to slowly pry the metal open...

_Come on John, get a hold of yourself, _John said to himself as he stood in front of Riley's home. It had been under advice of his mother that he had come here – she had told him he needed to break things off with Riley, especially after the Mexico incident. He didn't want to break things off with Riley – he actually liked spending time with her. He did, however, feel like she deserved an explanation. And maybe a date to make things up, but he'd worry about that particular detail later.

He was so enthralled by his musings that he completely missed when someone opened the door and greeted him. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he looked at the person, and, upon confirmation that it was indeed Riley's foster mother, smiled at her.

"Good evening miss," he said courteously, flashing a smile. "I'm looking for Riley."

The woman smiled at him, but John could see it was forced. "I'm afraid she's not here at the moment," she replied.

"Oh. Do you perhaps know where I could find her?" John asked casually: he didn't want to seem too eager to find her.

"Last I heard, she had gone down to see her friend who was new in town and was staying at a hotel on Bakercliff Street," the woman replied curtly, before she nodded in his direction and said, "Good night, John."

"Uh, good-" was as far as John got before she shut the door in his face.

_Is it just me, or did that woman seem not at all happy with me being there? _John thought as he turned around and walked back down the porch.

Ignoring that thought, John continued down the sidewalk to the hotel where this mysterious friend of Riley's was staying. He had to admit, the whole situation sounded extremely fishy to him. Why would Riley's foster parents be in such a foul mood if Riley was just visiting a friend? Perhaps she was seeing another guy? To John's utter confusion that possibility didn't make him nearly as angry as he would have thought it would.

"Very odd," he said aloud to the empty street.

"What is?" a familiar voice said behind him, and John nearly jumped out of his skin, before he turned around to see the voice's owner.

"Cameron!" he exclaimed in a surprised tone. "What're you doing here?"

She cocked her head to one side, as if John's statement had an obvious answer. "I'm guarding you, John," she said casually.

John couldn't help but roll his eyes. "I'm not a baby, Cameron. I can take care of myself."

"Yes, you're not a baby, you're an adolescent, nearly 17 years of age," John rolled his eyes again as she said this. "But, you are the reason I was sent here," he blushed at this statement, "and I won't let anything happen to you."

"Cameron," John said, feeling very embarrassed, "why do you keep putting up with me?"

Cameron seemed to think of a correct answer to give, and after a few seconds, answered, "It's my mission? It's the reason you reprogrammed me"

"But would you still do it, if you had a choice?" John asked.

He didn't expect what happened next. Cameron had just opened her mouth to answer when she suddenly went still, her lips still parted slightly and her eyes unblinking. John stood there, waiting for her to say something. When she stood still for a few seconds, and didn't speak, he knew something was wrong, however.

"Cameron?" John said, taking a few steps closer. "Are you alright?"

She didn't answer. John walked up until he was inches away from her, and waved his hand in front of her face. She didn't move. He clapped his fingers in front of her eyes, and still she did nothing.

John sighed, and took out his phone, dialling his mother. "Hi Mom," he said, and pressed a few buttons to give the password in Morse code.

"What do you want?" she asked curtly, after pressing the same code.

"Cameron just glitched out, I think," he replied with a sigh.

"What do you want me to do about it? It's your robot."

"Mom, we're in front of Riley's house!" John whispered urgently, looking around.

"Shit," came from the speaker. "Are you sure nobody is watching?"

"I'm sure," John replied, looking at the house.

"Okay," he heard her cover the phone and yell something to Derek. A few seconds later, she said, "John?"

"I'm still here."

"Derek said he'll meet you in five minutes. Don't go anywhere," she urged.

"Oh jeez, there goes my master plan," John said as he rolled his eyes and ended the call. He looked back at Cameron again, and couldn't help but be enthralled by the way the moonlight accentuated her features: her soft brown hair reflected the pale light, her soft skin seemed to come alive, and her brown eyes seemed to glow…

At that moment, John knew he still had feelings for her, no matter how much he tried to deny it. He had hoped that, if he started to get close with Riley, his feelings for the machine would disappear, but no such luck.

"Why did you have to be a terminator, Cameron?" he asked her still form.

He reached out to touch her cheek like he'd done the last time she was deactivated, but he pulled his hand away as he thought about the pain it might bring him again. He knew he shouldn't feel like that for a machine, the very epitome of what they were fighting, but he couldn't help it.

He suddenly heard the growl of their truck approaching, and immediately felt embarrassed. If Derek caught him perving about a robot, he'd never hear the end of it. But why did his future self send her back? Why her? And why was he so undeniably attracted to her. He pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind when Derek stopped next to him and got out of the car.

"What happened to Tin-Miss now?" he asked.

John pushed down the anger that brewed inside of him at Derek calling Cameron an 'it', and replied, "I don't know, I asked her something and she suddenly just shut down."

Derek growled something that sounded like 'have to come all this way to haul a dumb metal ass' and threw her over his shoulder, straining under the weight.

"Fuck, but it's heavy," he complained as he opened the rear door of the truck, throwing Cameron in rather unceremoniously, an action which greatly annoyed John, but he kept his feelings to himself, choosing to get into the passenger's side and stare out of the window. Derek got in and started the car, driving off into the distance. What they didn't know was that a figure was watching them from the bushes a couple of meters away. When they had left, the person took out their phone, and dialled a number.

"Yeah, they've left," the person said into the phone. "No, she glitched out, so they had to get a car to take her back."

"Excellent," said an Irish-accented female voice over the phone. "Keep watching them, and find out if John is able to repair her."


End file.
